I laughed.

Road Princess was the dam of the great Reign Road, the early '90s answer to Giacomo (without the Kentucky Derby win).

Dude those credentials are very similar to Jerry Baileys credentials.

Of course I meant 2002 when Bailey won a similar number of stakes.


Just because they let in someone with less than stellar credentials means that someone with virtually no credentials should be in? Was Cruget ever the leading rider at any meet? He was never in the top 3 in NY all the years he rode there. Seriously if he hadn't won the TC on Seattle Slew would you have ever heard of him?

OK.....it's isn't a Hall of Fame career. In fact, it isn't even close.

Heres another nice article about Cruguet that all should read.

http://www.saratoga.com/horse-racing...n-cruguet.html

What would you say if Hoist the Flag didnt get hurt and Cruguet had 2 triple crowns under his belt, would he still be a scab?

The person who wrote that article made the following quote in the comments section.

"He IS an amazing man, and no doubt the BEST, most gifted jockey who ever rode a horse."


Seriously???

Im not saying take it all as gospel, she also says he is a dear friend. But she make some good points of why type of jockey and person he was. What types of money he made lifetime 51million and this is before purses hit the roof. Not every better that lost 2 dollars on the guy can offer an opinion about who he was. Hes an ambassador to the sport and gave his all while he was in it.

My favorite part of the article was the picture of Seattle Slew winning the '78 Marlboro Cup....

with ANGEL CORDERO JR up!

Dale Murphy was arguably the best player in baseball for a 5 year period between 1982 and 1987. He won 2 MVP's, 4 Silver Slugger Awards, 5 Gold Gloves and made 6 all star teams. He never got more than 23% of the vte for the baseball HoF. No one argues he should be in.

Why does this matter?

Because Dale Murphy was a 100x better baseball player than Cruget was a jockey.

And noone outside of sicko Braves fans or his family believe he is a hall of famer.

Was Mike Schmidt Chuck Norris's brother?

All of which is nice but Hall of Fames should be for the best of the best and Cruget wasnt really ever considered one of the best riders in NY, in some circles he was thought of as a negative.
(a pretty wide circle i might add)

Answer the question honestly. If he did not win the TC on Seattle Slew would you have ever heard of him?

There are too many jockeys in the HoF as it is. Hell there are about 1000 times more jockeys per capita than horses.

The great but how does that compare? A ball player that was great for 5 years compared to a jockey that won some of the sports greatest races in three different decades on different continents?

Chuck Norris never cried

The point is that Cruget was never even considered the best rider anywhere at anytime! At least Murphy was considered the best player for a while. Just hanging around for a long time does not make one great.

I grew up in Saratoga and made the races there every single day of my life until I moved away when I was 22, so yes I def knew who he was. I knew who he was before I knew that he even won the triple crown. Im not new to this sport, ive been gambling since i was like 7 and been going to the windows personally since I was 12. Im a classic case of a gambling degenerate. Ill bet on 2 ants crossing the street.

And yes there are too many jocks in the hall, I said this earlier. It should be a hell of alot harder to get into the hall. All im saying is Jeans numbers compare and are actually better that alot of jocks already in there.

Im thinking in hind sight Jean got a bad rap back in the day. He WON thats all that matters, not what certain trainers were quoted as saying about him or inner circle that may have hated him because they lost money on him because of a bum ride. Jocks give bum rides day in and out now a days, it a very common occurrence, people just dont remember them as much as they used to

I find it incredible that anyone would push the argument that that ****in' IDIOT was a good jock. He makes present day super idiots like Espinoza, Ramsammy, Husbands, Centeno, etc. look like superstars. I mean, it gets no worse than Cruget. In fact, Mike Luzzi is a better jock than Cruget. At least with Luzzi you know what you get beforehand: very simple skills backed up by an idiot's intelligence. Cruget couldn't even offer that much.

We have to be kidding here.

I think this is what i was trying to say....nicely.

Like I said earlier, anyone of these jocks you just listed would sell their souls to the devil to have Jean resume.

I golfed with Mike Schmidt in Florida when I was like 12. He's pretty much a douche. I was like standing a bit behind him and off to the side waiting for him to hit his shot and he turns around and tells me to move.

I was like "ah, Mr. Schmidt, the hole is straight ahead." He got all pissy towards me the rest of the day.